Pairs use desktop publishing software, as well as digital video and camera equipment, to craft a book review. These reviews are then shared with others in the school community through the class or school website.

Students explore and react to the painting The Road to Santa Fe. In this interacting with art lesson, students locate various objects in the painting.  Students copy the angle of objects by using their bodies.  Students discuss...

Differentiate instruction with this crafty approach to demonstrating comprehension. Learners choose a fictional book at their reading level, and afterward create a quilt square. The square is "decorated" with words, illustrations, and...

Students examine the lives of the Aboriginal peoples of Saskatchewan. In this talking stick activity, students discover dance, art, music, and traditions of the First Nations people.  Students design and create a talking stick to...

Fluency is crucial to reading success. This lesson provides a great technique for increasing fluency. Using Inspiration or Garage Band, learners record themselves reading a passage at their reading level and repeat the process to monitor...

While the content of this lesson is more specific to the first grade, the directions given to work on a PowerPoint are well written. These directions could be used by anyone, with any content. Younger learners may need help reading the...

Kids love songs! Listen to "La tortuga taruga" to interest the class. Then, read about animals. Finally, play a fun game! All learners gather in a circle, and music plays while pictures are passed around. When the music stops, each...

Learners demonstrate communication skills in speaking and listening by introducing another student to the class. Working in pairs, classmates interview each other. During the 10-minute sessions, they listen, take notes on an index card,...

What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...

High schoolers discover characterization techniques and methods. In this characterization lesson plan, students choose favorite fiction characters and discuss what makes a character come alive. High schoolers then describe a family...

Use this communication skills lesson to emphasize evaluating a speaker's main point and argument. After reading Martin Luther King's, "I Have a Dream Speech" and John F. Kennedy's speech, "I Believe in an America Where the Separation of...

Learners explore families and culture. In this family and culture lesson, students discuss their families and their similarities and differences. Learners read the book The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco and create their own quilt...

Students discuss their favorite book. In this book discussion lesson, students name the title and tell what makes the book special. Students also review the setting, plot, conflict, and resolution. Students make a book that tells all of...

Fourth graders recognize that the Tejanas were Texas women of Spanish-Mexican origin who contributed to the history of Texas. Students read and research the Tejanas women, complete an essay about a day in the life of a Tejanas woman ,and...

Have class members create a recipe flip book for their favorite after school snack. Using ordinal words (first, second next, etc.), young chefs write and illustrate each step in the process on separate cards. They then design a cover,...

Eight various activities have your learners looking at hype in the media. Advertisements for films, politics, music, and philanthropy all contribute to emotional appeals and marketing strategies trying to convince consumers to...

Play this fun adaptation of the game Memory. Young scholars flip over high-frequency word cards, read them aloud, and keep them if they match.

Go bowling for high-frequency words! Partners take turns drawing bowling ball cards and read the word printed on them. If the learner is successful, they record their score on a scorecard.

There are many different ways to build accuracy and fluency when reading. This exercise employs repetition and timed drills to get the job done. Learners time each other as they read a passage, recording each other's time and accuracy.

Partners practice reading fluency by reciting sentence strips to each other with proper expression and intonation. Partner A chooses a strip at random and reads it silently, then aloud with expression. Partner B reads the same sentence...

Young scholars in varying grades work cooperatively to create a living museum of items that have been "passed down" through generations. They give a brief oral presentation showing their object (or a picture of it) and describing its...

Fourth graders explore various strategies to overcome fears of writing, and utilize a story map as a prewriting strategy. They read and discuss the steps of the writing process, follow the steps along with the teacher as they discuss the...

Learning prepositions can be tricky in any language, and English is no exception! Try out the activities described here to help your English language learners grasp the difference between in and on and through and by. After a game of...

Young readers develop their phonetic skills by using a nifty tool called a word pocket. They use the tool to help them organize individual letters that they have at their desks to spell entire words and to construct beginning and ending...